Re: [Pen-l] private vs. state colleges

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Terry McDonough, Terrence wrote:
> ... What I'm wondering about is credentialling that no longer perhaps serves any function, pernicious or otherwise.  ... The process we participate in is very expensive.  Most students learn less than a comparable period in "the real world" would teach them.  Is it simply inertia that keeps it going? Or is it that all the people involved (students, faculty, administration) have an interest in bamboozling the public about the value of these degrees? <

My guess is that (1) it's too difficult to get it together to solve a
macro-level issue (the familiar collective action problem); and (2)
most people don't want to admit that their credentials are worthless.
The latter likely involves a certain amount of a response to cognitive
dissonance: if confronted with idea that spending 16+ years and an
unknown number of megaeuros results in what's basically a worthless
piece of paper, most people say "I must have done _something_ to earn
it."
-- 
Jim Devine / "If heart-aches were commercials, we'd all be on TV." -- John Prine
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